Heathcote Williams on David Cameron - Karma’s Chameleon

Poet Heathcote Williams responds to David Cameron's declaration that he is "standing firm and will not be cowed" by ISIS barbarity.

David Cameron - Karma’s Chameleon

As a millionaire member of the Chipping Norton set
Cameron brown-noses racists and phone-hackers,
And he's said that the idea of prisoners voting has made him "physically ill" –
This man, who favours nuclear bombs and who finances frackers.

After killing 15,000 people in Libya,
David Cameron felt like a break
So he took off for the Scottish Island of Jura
And his mega-rich father-in-law's estate.

Viscount Astor's spread includes a cottage
Where George Orwell wrote '1984'
But rather than the Premier absorbing its message
He slaughters birds with his pricey twelve-bore;

And as a change from his blood-letting in Libya,
Where he was Obama's obliging minion,
He'd fondle a .234-calibre rifle and then exult
As the stag he was stalking spurted crimson.

"He who controls the past controls the future"
Orwell wrote and most people would deduce
That being a murderous busybody might be risky
Since your chickens could come home to roost.

But Cameron's been supplying weapons to those forces
Whom he's urged to change their regimes,
And he cannot see that by his foolishly playing with fire
He might provoke some unsavoury scenes.

At the first sign of great changes in the Arab world,
Namely at the height of the Arab Spring,
What does he do but embark on an arms-selling spree
So oil tyrant pals can stay safe doing their thing.

As an ex-Public Relations spiv for a tacky tv company
With inherited wealth from Dad's tax haven racket,
The Bullingdon Club's Bunter knows that social unrest
Can provide ruthless arms dealers with a meal ticket.

He and the opportunists Blair, Bush and Obama created Isis
Or IS, now stalking Westerners in Syria and Iraq,
And as cruel toffs display stags' heads in baronial castles
Cruel ISIS displays their victims' heads with severed necks.

During the Iraq war, supported by David Cameron,
The allies destroyed 36,000 of Fallujah's homes
With air strikes, white phosphorous and cluster bombs,
They pulverised the Fallujah mosques' domes,

The City of two hundred Sunni mosques was reduced
To no more than a pile of rubble;
Oblivious to their instituting a cycle of violence,
Ignorant of making a blueprint for trouble.

But after killing a thousand civilians, and causing cancer
And birth defects and maximum distress
By their forcing 300,000 Fallujah inhabitants to flee,
Fallujah would lead inevitably to IS.

When four US marines in combat gear
Took out their genitals on camera
To urinate on the bodies of Afghans they'd killed
and jeered, 'Have a great day, buddy', and 'Yeahhhh!'

And when the urinating GIs groaned with relief while they cackled,
'The first bath they have had in years!'
And when Muslims read the comments of the GIs' US admirers
Such as 'We're all proud of you guys',

And 'cut their heads off and bury them with a pig', then it's not hard to see
How IS's theatre of murder was born:
How by war crimes in Afghanistan, in Libya and in Iraq –
ISIS's beheadings and kidnappings were spawned.

Cameron said he'd take "personal charge" of efforts to secure a victim's release,
Namely that of David Cawthorne Haines,
And yet his efforts were as useless as the fairy-dust he once snorted,
Vapid promises that only added to the Haines' family's pain.

David Cameron would flatly refuse to pay ransoms
Making him more stiff-necked than King John
Who coughed up to save Richard the Lionheart
And wasn't too proud to deal with Saladin.

The fruit of Cameron's serving the stereotype of 'Little Satan',
The craven skivvy to America's satanic Empire,
Was a fellow Brit being forced to kneel down in the desert
Bravely facing a crude instrument of terror.

"My name is David Cawthorne Haines," said Haines
Dressed in an orange shift and threatened with a knife
"I would like to declare that I hold you David Cameron…"
Haines addressed the world, his child and his wife.

"I would like to declare that I hold you David Cameron…"
"Entirely responsible for my execution."
Haines then accused the British Prime Minister of entering
"Voluntarily into a coalition

"With the United States against the Islamic State
"Just as your predecessor Tony Blair did
"Following a trend amongst our British Prime Minsters
"Who can't find the courage to say no to the Americans.

"Unfortunately it is we the British public who will pay the price
"For our Parliament's selfish decisions."
When it was over his severed head was placed on his back
In the most gruesome and barbarous position.

"The only way to defeat IS is to stand firm" said Cameron,
Pompously adding "A country like ours will not be cowed"
Only to be cowed by the US Empire into helping cover yet more
Of the Middle East with the US war machine's shroud.